Hand strength, including both grip strength and pinch strength, is important for daily life function and may be important in certain sports as well. Athletic training programs as well as therapy rehabilitation regimens following injury or surgery may target grip strength, pinch strength, or both. Athletic trainers, coaches, physical therapists and occupational therapists need to assess current strength capabilities, as well as to prescribe exercises to increase strength and to track progress and adherence during the course of training or rehabilitation. The inventions and devices disclosed here offer several advantages over current grip and pinch exercisers and assessors.
A number of grip exercising products currently exist that are designed to strengthen the hand and forearm muscles, including for example, the Spring Grip, Gripmaster, Norco Hand Exerciser, Rolyan Basic Ergonomic Hand Exerciser, and Cando Adjustable 6-Spring Hand Grip devices. Separate from grip exercising products, a category of grip assessment products exist for measuring grip strength, including, for example the Camry Digital, Jamar Hydraulic, Jamar Plus+Digital, Bosch K-MAP, DynEx, and SMEDLEY III. Additionally, the inventors are not aware of any commercial devices in which the capability is provided for live or real-time data feedback. The inventions disclosed and claimed here constitute significant improvements over the prior art devices, providing useful and efficient exercising and assessment capabilities for both grip strength and pinch strength, all in one product.
It will be understood by those skilled in the art that one or more aspects of these inventions can meet certain objectives, while one or more there aspects can lead to certain other objectives. Other objects, features, benefits and advantages of the present inventions will be apparent in this summary and descriptions of the disclosed embodiment, and will be readily apparent to those skilled in the art. Such objects, features, benefits and advantages will be apparent from the above as taken in conjunction with the accompanying figures and all reasonable inferences to be drawn therefrom.